We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stefanie Trenholme. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stefanie below.
Stefanie, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.
I had been working at a private practice for years, and eventually ran the speech therapy department. While I enjoyed my colleagues and mentoring others, I felt that something was missing and that was being my own boss. I had no idea what was involved in running my own practice, especially in a country and city that I was still relatively new in, but I knew that it was a risk that I had to take. I was and am still lucky to be in a field that there is a lot of demand- so if things didn’t work out, I knew I could always go back and work for another company, a hospital or a school district. I started slowly putting my feelers out by networking with various private schools, professionals who also worked in pediatrics (such as occupational therapists, behaviorists, dentists, developmental pediatricians, special education lawyers etc.) to start making some connections for potential referrals. I remember when I decided it was finally time, I was home writing my letter of resignation and crying while doing so. While I was excited, I was also utterly terrified wondering if I was making the right decision- especially as I had just bought my first home. I was truly a mix of emotions, but figured there was no time like the present. In order to keep costs down I figured I would start with doing in home speech therapy. It was fine at first, but became tiresome after a while. While we don’t get a lot of rain in LA, I can’t tell you how miserable it was carrying my box of toys from home to home when it did rain. Also don’t get me started about dealing with LA traffic- ugh. So after about a year I decided to bite the bullet and rent my first office. I will never forget how I thought I had struck gold with such a great monthly rent and location. I proudly painted my walls, painted beautiful murals in my treatment room and began to do therapy with a small caseload and then approximately four months later I was given a letter stating that they were going to be tearing the building down in a couple of months and I had to leave. So I began looking for another space- but in the interim I rented literally floorspace from a friend who is a chiropractor and did therapy on the floor of his office until I found the office that I am currently in. I have now been there 15 years. While I had to figure out so many things involved with running a business including different types of insurances, best billing practices, HIPPA rules and regulations and a plethora of other details, it has been beyond worth it. While surely scary in the beginning and can still be to this day (especially during the pandemic), my advice is do it slowly. Don’t put pressure on yourself as there will be hiccups, but that is part of the learning process. It is also important to remember that sometimes you just have to take risks because the reward is really worth it.
Stefanie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I actually stumbled into my field. I knew from a young age that I wanted to help people- in particular children, but I didn’t know in what context. I had contemplated being a social worker, but also had a desire to be an art therapist, but when I was doing my undergraduate degrees, art therapy was still a relatively new field and only 2 schools in Canada had the program. Incidentally at this same time I was working in a rehabilitation center in Montreal creating language stimulation programs for adults who had Aphasia and integrating my love for art in my job there. Not sure of what career path I should choose, it was actually my boyfriend at the time who suggested to me that I should become a speech language pathologist and incorporate my art background. It was then that a lightbulb went off.
In my private practice, I work with children 0 to 22 years of age who have challenges with: learning, expressive and receptive language, pragmatic language (social skills), executive functioning, oral motor functioning, articulation, fluency (stuttering), and voice as well as those who have oral facial myofunctional disorders. When I try to explain my job I tell people I work from the throat up to the brain. Besides being a speech-language pathologist, I consider myself lucky as I get to use my art background too- as a way to elicit my treatment goals, create therapy materials or just as a reinforcer for the kids I see. In addition to clinical work, I have also been a guest speaker at private schools in both Los Angeles and New York City discussing how speech pathologists can support educators in the classroom to help develop a child’s speech and language. Besides being a good clinician, I think educating the public is extremely important. There are still a lot of misconceptions about my field- like what we actually do as well as some inaccuracies about speech and language development so I am often trying to educate others through my social media. Collaboration for me is also wildly important and I have been very blessed to work with so many wonderful people for the betterment of the kiddos we treat.
I work very hard and it’s been really exciting having my hard work pay off over the last few years. I have been voted as one of LA’s top Speech Pathologists by Expertise.com 5 years in a row (2016-2021), recognized as one of the “Top 30 Inspiring Women To Look Out for in 2022”, and more recently recognized by NY Weekly as one of the “Top 10 Inspiring Women to Look Out for in 2023”. While these are great recognitions as a clinician, I have to say I am most proud of my work with Lola, my therapy dog. Not only is she a great companion to me, but she has been a wonderful addition in my practice as she works with the kids and their families that I see. I also go into schools with her to teach children how to treat animals. As a huge animal lover, I really value the positive impact animals have on people and as such I always wanted to utilize an animal in my practice to do animal assisted (speech) therapy and it has been such a great decision. The positive influence Lola has had on so many is unbelievable.
To have Lola touch more people’s lives, I have had the wonderful opportunity to use my speech therapy and art background in my latest business venture which revolves around Lola- who is also known as “Little Lola Frenchie”. First of all, I have created a website to show people how Lola has been used in speech therapy sessions and have provided free online resources to help children with their language development through daily routines- which is also a topic on a podcast I did last year and is available on Lola’s site. There is also a store with adorable “Lola swag”. Additionally, last year I published my first children’s book called “Little Lola Frenchie Loves Bathtime” and I am in the process of completing my second book called “Little Lola Frenchie Bakes a Cake” and this will include the recipe for Lola’s cake that children can make with their own families. I am also currently working on an activity workbook for children that targets listening activities called “Look Who’s Listening with Little Lola Frenchie”. Lola has been such an inspiration on so many levels and I am so glad that I have been able to find ways to help children both in and outside of my practice.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
Obviously going to the right school is important as well as where you do your training- both during the program and during your CF which is our clinical fellowship and is about a year long. But for me what has been really helpful over the years is the continuing education classes that we need to take to maintain our license. Each certification period I find that I have taken more classes than what is necessary to maintain my license. In fact I think I have earned ASHA’s (the American Speech and Hearing Association) ACE award- which is an award for continuing education, at least 5 times! What can I say except I love learning and I enjoy taking classes in all different areas to keep up my knowledge base and learn new techniques as the field of speech therapy is advancing and changing often. I find doing in person classes much more beneficial, however since the pandemic in-person courses are harder to come by which is unfortunate. There are live online courses but it really is not the same thing as being in a room with other professionals who are in the same or related field.
I also thinking networking and being a part of different groups for individuals who work in the pediatric population is a great resource and very helpful. Social media has been great for this. I also belong to online local pediatric groups which are helpful if I need guidance about a client (trouble shooting), insight into potentially other referrals or thoughts on other necessary services etc. I love being able to ask a group of my peers for ideas. Sharing our knowledge to me is invaluable. I also attend networking events in the city for childhood and adolescent practitioners and find this beneficial as well.
Have you ever had to pivot?
OMG yes. During the pandemic! During this time we as speech- language pathologists had to get very creative and come up with different treatment methods and also face reality that there was a huge reduction in referrals which led to a reduced caseload size. Talk about having to be flexible, think on your toes, as well as figuring out how to target your goals through an impersonal computer screen. It was interesting to say in the least. Most of us had never done teletherapy before the pandemic- myself included, and we had to learn very quickly how it all worked and how to keep a child engaged through a screen. I mean I am a speech- language pathologist and a lot of my job is dealing with people- in person. Whether it is to work on social skills, feeding or oral motor challenges- physically being with your client is really necessary. I mean for some kids it wasn’t that big a deal- such as those who were older or had learning challenges as I was able to attend class with them via Zoom and we could work fairly easily online during our therapy session. While it was impersonal to some degree, it was manageable (as long as the internet was cooperating). However I had many children who really needed that in-person treatment. Even though we were in “Lockdown” I still went to my office for some of my clientele. This was extremely important as I was the only services they were receiving at that time and for some children I work with, for example those who have autism, it was critical for them to maintain their routine/sense of consistency to help with their learning and over all well-being when the world was a mess. But even then there were many new obstacles in the office I had to deal with- using face shields, keeping an appropriate distance etc. As everyone was at a loss of what COVID was, the seriousness of it, what the appropriate safety protocols should be etc. it made therapy quite challenging and to be honest exhausting. Even though I was figuring out how to adapt to this new way of doing speech therapy, it was actually during this time that Lola herself became an entrepreneur and her business was started. That too was a huge learning curve – dealing with trademarks, copyrights, publishing, licensing and more. Even though it had been a goal of mine to publish children’s books and provide online resources, time was always an issue, but the pandemic provided me with the perfect opportunity to begin. So out of the chaos, something meaningful was created.
Contact Info:
- Website: LittleLolaFrenchie.com.
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littlelolafrenchie/?hl=en and https://www.instagram.com/trenholmespeechtherapy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littlelolafrenchie/ and https://www.facebook.com/TrenholmeSpeechTherapy/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanie-trenholme-167898156
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Lola-Frenchie-Loves-Bathtime/dp/1737742306 https://www.kpvi.com/news/local_news/lola-the-french-bulldog-helps-families-with-communication-issues/article_b82098c8-8372-11ec-800f-d7c211679e24.html
Image Credits
These are my photos and have received permission from my families I work with to share them.